March 6, 2009

I can barely force myself to watch AI anymore, but reading descriptions of the show is great fun. Yes, I know, maybe you had fun reading my descriptions of the show in year's past, but the problem there is that I have to watch it, and my current watching involves the kind of fast-forwarding that compresses a 2-hour show — why the hell is the show 2 hours?! — into about 15 minutes. I'll hear 2 seconds of a singer and know it's too horrible to watch. Even the good ones are annoying me now.

The link above goes to Trooper York. I also like Jacob at Television Without Pity. When I was trying to actually watch the show, I thought Jacob's recaps were ridiculously long and meandering. Well, the solution to that is not for Jacob to rein in his effusions and digressions. It's quite simply for me to stop watching the show and read Jacob (who absurdly gives every episode an A+):

First up we're going to group sing -- mostly seated, because of the Scott [blind guy] factor -- a Katy Perry song, "Hot & Cold," which is the third Katy Perry single that has to do with boys and girls and boys who like girls who do boys like they're girls and reinforcing gender stereotypes while congratulating itself on not doing that. Let's talk about Katy Perry for a second. I actually heard this cover of "Electric Feel" that she did, and it was totally lovely. She has a wonderful voice under all that bullshit, which makes me hate her more and not less. It's not even the horrific Diablo Cody/Betty Page cute/burlesque crap, although they do contribute to the overall '90s-ness of her, which is admittedly yucky.

The problem is that, just like this show is not so much about selling your soul as speculating against the real estate market of the place your soul would normally be located, Katy Perry took a pretty face and a fantastic voice and leveraged them against this stupid-ass dead-end offensive gender stuff: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes" tells you everything you need to know about Katyworld, where men have minds and girls have clothes, and girls only kiss girls to impress guys because they are drunk. It's not even a one-trick pony, it's just a trick, and a cautionary tale for these kids, who have not even begun to sell out yet. Katy Perry is to sexuality what Gwen Stefani is to racial equality.

OK, I'll take a shot: much of Gwen Stefani's work purports to be socially edgy, but is actually thoroughly mainstream music industry ska-influenced pop pap. Similarly, Katy Perry purports to push all kinds of sexual boundaries, but it's all in a very frat boy rock sort of way that doesn't actually challenge anyone's conceptions of female sexuality.

Of course, I may only be saying this because both "artists" bore me to tears. And now we've come full circle to this season's AI, which I also stopped watching. 2 hours, the horrible pacing problems associated with being live, and the endlessly vapid ablutions of Kara Dioguardi are just. too. much.

The Gwen Stefani reference is because some people think she caricatures and fetishizes Asians, specifically Japanese. Mostly people complain about her Harajuku girls. But some also whinge on about the Jamaican influences and artists she's pulled in.

Me, I think Gwen can do no wrong. But, then I'm asian, so maybe I have issues with myself...? People are so uptight.